


in this image / in this name

by scyllas (orphan_account)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Kinda, M/M, Reincarnation, Unrequited Love, pygmalion and galatea au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 00:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4808327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/scyllas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>‘i think you would’ve liked it there,’ you say, as if you do not already know. you think on it now-- the sun, heavy in the sky. the cry of seabirds. the feel of his head on your shoulder, his dark dark hair tickling your neck. ‘it was so quiet, you swear you could’ve heard the sirens in the night.'</i><br/><br/><i>dorian laughs as he always does, never at you, but always at what you remember and at what he has forgotten. ‘i suppose they sang you lullabies when you couldn’t sleep?’</i><br/><br/><i>‘sometimes.’</i><br/><br/>a pygmalion-and-galatea au. sort of. written for the cullrian mini-bang!</p>
            </blockquote>





	in this image / in this name

**Author's Note:**

> [please look at fenbutt's art it's so great, i could cry](http://fenbutt.tumblr.com/post/129012399675/this-is-the-one-pic-for-the-cullrian-mini-bang)  
>   
>  as for this fic, please take the beast, i wash my hands of it. i swear "tears" as a prompt has something to do with this fic. it happens twice. _i swear_  
>   
>  EDIT: i forgot to mention that i totally messed around with the original myth, and i left some details vague because it would just mess around with the presentation and y ea h.

i.

he is not meant for the cold. he curses and shivers and shakes, and you find yourself laughing quietly. he says he never took you for cruel and wraps his scarf tighter around his neck.

the sea unfurls before you, wave after wave cresting before crashing down in a spray of seafoam white on brown sugar sand. the sand glitters, catching grey rainy sunlight like crushed glass when you dust it from your legs. the autumn pale sky stretches over you, sun so small you feel like you could reach up and hold it, burning and dim between your rough palms.

you sit yourself down where the ocean kisses the beach, digging your heels into the sand. he refuses to sit alongside you, but he removes his boots and his socks and stands beside you, wilting but stubborn. he would have sat next to you before, held your hands between his. ‘look!’ he would cry as if he had never seen the ocean so vast and so blue, and you would follow his gaze, content to play along. everything was azure and gold, jeweled and gilded.

much has changed since then.

‘my home was in a place much like this,’ you begin, closing your eyes and tilting it towards the sky.

‘somewhere cold, miserable, and smelling of fish?’

‘i think you would’ve liked it there,’ you say, as if you do not already know. you think on it now-- the sun, heavy in the sky. the cry of seabirds. the feel of his head on your shoulder, his dark dark hair tickling your neck. ‘it was so quiet, you swear you could’ve heard the sirens in the night.’

dorian laughs as he always does, never at you, but always at what you remember and at what he has forgotten. ‘i suppose they sang you lullabies when you couldn’t sleep?’

‘sometimes.’

you do not tell him that the sirens called men to their inky homes, deep deep deep, to the depths of the world where even hades would not tread. you do not tell him that their songs, haunting and lilting and carrying far beyond the boundaries of the sea, reminded you of him.

the phantom chill of the water washes over your toes, and he curses again.

-

You did not mean to stay so long. One day, you had thought when Cullen threw open his door. You had looked terrible-- your pride allows this at least. Bedraggled and travel weary, drenched in tears and the unrelenting storms of late summer. You wonder how you didn’t scare the man away, yet he ushered you in without a word.

Two days, you amended after he gave you something warm to pass between your lips-- tea, perhaps. Three days when you curled your fingers into a thick blanket after settling yourself in the bed. A week when you woke up to the smell of strong coffee and pancakes.

Somehow, the days escape you, so quickly that they almost pass without your knowledge. Yet, the seasons turn and you find yourself tugging your blanket over your head and donning sweaters to sleep.

You wake up late on the morning of the third month. A soft knock on the door, and you croak ‘Come in.’ Cullen peeks his head around the door, and you smile at his still sleep mussed hair. He refuses to comb it, and you two squabbled more than once on the topic.

‘Good morning,’ he says, but it sounds like a whisper. You’ve never met someone so unwilling to disturb the silence. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

You hum, sitting up and stretching. ‘S’alright,’ you mumble, words still thick in your mouth. ‘Did you need something?'

‘Did you want to come down and eat lunch? It’s past noon.’ His sweater sleeves are a tad too short for his arms, and they pull up his arm as he reaches to rub the back of his neck. ‘Though I think I know the answer.’

You fall back to the bed. ‘Later,’ you mumble, pressing your face to your pillow.

‘Alright,’ he says, still so soft, and the door closes with a quiet click.

One year, you think hazily, and sleep claims you once more.

 

ii.

you like dawns like this the best when sunny apollo still yawns, rubbing the sleep from his tawny eyes. eos glances upon him, still a boy, still so young, and feels the eons building in her bones. a long time she has lived, and you do not envy her. duty binds her. she brushes away the night with her rose twined fingers. wake, she says, rousing the world from its slumber.

he never wakes as early as you-- hypnos sings to him still, and part of you is grateful. the mornings are for your reaching reminiscence. in the last vestiges of the blue night, you swear you hear the goddess whisper into your ear once more. oh darling, she croons, carding her whisper soft fingers through your hair. what have you done to yourself?

part of you misses his presence, misses the life he brings. he grounds you, helps to keep you here and now, not drowning in the thoughts of who you once were and what once was. he keeps you living in your own name.

you watch the sun crest over the horizon, glinting over the sea. your breath catches in the air like gossamer spider silk, brought away by the wind to the murmuring tides.

-

Cullen has a strange love affair with the sea. Some mornings, his hair is wet, clothes pulling awkwardly at damp skin, and he shakes his curls like a shaggy dog, laughing when you recoil back. Other mornings, he refuses to step outside the house to even spare a passing glance to the crash of water on his beloved bleached cliffs. You fancy it reminds him of some old lover, and most of the time, you disregard the thought as passing foolishness. But there are times that you believe you are right-- the times that he looks like a man so lost that he no longer wants to be found.

This morning, he comes through the door with his tattered jeans rolled up to his knees and his sweater sleeves pushed past his elbows. He tracks sand and water on the pale wooden floors.

You take a long long drink of your coffee, ignoring the scalding of your tongue. ['How are the waves today?' you ask. 'Treacherous? Terrible?'](http://imgur.com/a/jbdYk)

He startles in his odd way-- eyes widening, stilling mid-movement like a statue. ‘They were nice,’ he replies, unfrozen. ‘You’re up early,’ and he smiles at this. He looks like a different man with that smile-- it is as if it is not a lost lover, but consciousness, that haunts him. ‘It’s just after dawn.’

‘I decided to grace you with my morning presence.’ You pointedly drink from your mug, but the effect is ruined when you yawn afterward.

‘So you did,’ and his voice sounds so inexplicably fond that it makes your heart ache, but only a little. At least, this is what you tell yourself. ‘But alas, I’m quite aware you’re only awake because you wanted to steal my breakfast.’

‘Pah! Foiled again.’

He laughs. ‘I don’t mind sharing, Dorian.’

You walk towards the kitchen, patting him on the shoulder as you pass by. ‘And that, my friend, is your folly.’ 

 

iii.

galatea, meaning ‘milk white.’ he thought himself so clever, naming you so-- pale pale pale as the veined marble from where you were hewn. he used to hold your cold hands gentle as you would hold eggshells for fear of breaking them. you used to laugh at his carefulness-- you were born of stone and of a goddess’ blessing. there was nothing in you to break, marble heart and marble lungs.

‘galatea,’ he would say, eyes alight. he said your name like you were a wonder, a miracle, a mystery that perhaps did not need solving. he said your name like he was trying to chase the taste of the sweetest honey on his tongue.

pygmalion, you still do not know the meaning, only that to you, he meant ‘creator’ and ‘enemy’ and ‘friend’, then ‘lover’ and ‘yours’. always covered in silver-grey dust, you used to cup his face and wipe it away from his cheeks, smiling at the clear tracks your fingers made. you stood taller than him, you still do, and he kissed your chin. ‘pygmalion,’ and you so yearned to take the loneliness he tried to hide.

those names are so distant from you now that at times, you believe them myth. it is only you who remembers, after all.

-

‘You’re severely lacking in your literature,’ you say, perusing his shelves for perhaps the hundredth time in your six months. Of course, nothing ever changes-- Cullen very rarely goes to town for anything other than food, and as of late, you find yourself going instead of him. He is the ever increasing enigma, and you are the closest person to even glimpse beyond the shroud. ‘War story, war story, oh, and a misplaced DVD case of a war documentary.’

You cannot see him as he idles sitting by the window, but you know he rolls his eyes. ‘You’re welcome to add to the collection if you so choose. I’m sure, er, Jennifer in the town is more than glad to sell you more.’

‘Josephine.’

‘What?’

‘Her name is Josephine, and she gives me coupons for buying coffee in bulk.’ You let your fingers drag over worn paperbacks and towering hardcovers, letting them linger on what looks like a terrible erotica. You didn’t peg Cullen to be the type to read such dreg, but you store the fact away for later when the situation calls for it and he refuses to lend you his warmest socks.

‘I could’ve sworn it was Jennifer the last time I was there,’ he mumbles. ‘They must have switched ownership.’

‘I suppose you haven’t been down there in a few months.’

‘Years.’

‘Well, that’s explains… everything, really. Out of curiosity, what did you get the last time you were there?’

He is quiet for a moment. ‘Jennifer’s number.'

This makes you erupt in surprised laughter. You turn to look at him, and he averts your gaze. Cullen is as red as a strawberry, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen a lovelier shade on him. ‘You took Jennifer the bookstore owner on a date?’

‘I never said that,’ he mumbles. ‘I never called the number. It’s still on the fridge, I think.’

‘Oh, poor Jennifer, out in the cold, cold world without a dashing man named Cullen to warm her loins by the fire. I think she’d answer if you called.’

He shakes his head with vehemence. ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’ As soon as the words slip from his mouth, he turns away sharply as if in shame. ‘I mean, I--’

‘The same as…?’ you prompt. Cullen traps his bottom lip between his teeth. ‘Cullen?’ You follow his gaze out of the window, towards the ocean, and you wonder if you’ve overstepped, somehow. ‘Not the same as loving the sea, yeah? Sailor’s soul and all. I understand.’

‘Something-- something like that. I don’t know. Let’s forget I said anything.’ He gets up, brushing off the imaginary dust off his knees. When he looks at you, his face is carefully controlled, but you can see a strange something flit in his eyes, something that reminds you so much of a man adrift that you are halfway across the floor before you know you’re moving, and your arms are around him before your thoughts have a chance to puzzle themselves together.

He doesn’t breathe, and you don’t either, and you can’t help but think you’ve fucked up somehow when he places his hands lightly on your back and holds you to him.

‘This is awkward,’ he mock whispers, and you laugh.

‘I know.’

You only separate when your stomach grumbles with hunger pangs, calling for dinner. 

 

iv.

you awoke loving him-- that is what the poets say.

he adored you from the start-- that is what the poets say.

they are wrong.

in truth, he did not kiss you, as the stories say. you awoke to a goddess’ command, and he was a stranger, wide eyed, incredulous, unhappy. ‘this isn’t what i meant,’ he whispered, his voice building up into an angry cry. he wished for a someone as beautiful as you, but you were not enough, not at first. ‘this isn’t what i meant!’

you don’t remember stepping down from your pedestal, but suddenly you towered over him. you were shaky on your feet. it had felt odd to be human, to fit in flesh and blood and bone. every part of you had felt dried, left to bake in the sun, and every breath seemed to scrape in your throat. terror and anger seized you, and you pushed past him into the blinding sunshine, racing on unsteady legs away away away.

‘time, my dear,’ said aphrodite. ‘give yourself time.’ you had hidden yourself underneath the shade of a tree. you felt too large, too real. every movement carried you to a consequence, and your lungs felt tight with decision. she cradled you against her chest, and you did not cry, only gasp until the beating of your heart slowed. she smelled of something sweet and something odd-- honeysuckle, you think back on it now. honeysuckle and seawater.

‘he does not want me there.’ the words blur over the ages, but the hurt still strikes your chest.

‘he is waiting to apologize. come, i will lead you home.’ she lied to you. he did not apologize. he was not home when you stumbled back, and you waited for hours in the darkness. you cannot say that you did not take pleasure in his startled expression as you sat silent in the dark.

‘he will wait as long as he needs to. and so will you.’ she laughed at your churlish behavior, and you felt chastised, though slightly.

‘i can wait forever, darling.’

‘so can i,’ you said, and she sighed.

-

‘Where is your home, Dorian? Your family, where are they?’ he asks you one evening. You watch him as he pulls framed pictures from old cardboard boxes gone off color with age. He smiles at one briefly before putting on the ground, face down.

You try not to think of home much-- the good memories of the place are swarmed by disappointment and guilt. Is it still home if you’ve no desire to see it anymore? You shake your head-- you do not know. ‘Somewhere to the north,’ you say, pulling a box to yourself and peeling off the tape that seals it. ‘Bit drier than the eternal dreary weather here. My parents are most likely still gallivanting from money vault to money vault.’

Cullen whistles, long and low. ‘You were rich.’

‘Rich doesn’t even properly cover it.’ You pull a plethora of stuffed animals from the box, all decorated with excesses of ribbon. ‘Your sisters?’

‘Only Rosalie. Mia wasn’t one for bows or ribbons.’ He reaches his arm into the box and takes out an old photo-- there are fold lines and tiny tears, and the image is blurry, but you can still make out three smiling faces. ‘That’s me, Bran, then Rose at the end, back when we all lived together.’ You look at Cullen’s siblings-- their hair is darker than his, Bran’s is bordering on black. Rose is willowy, like a strong wind could blow her to the ends of the earth, but her smile is the largest.

You save Cullen’s face for last-- he had an awkward face, caught between the gauntness of adulthood and chubby cheeked youth. His eyes are ever so serious, and you laugh. ‘Why isn’t this beauty hanging on the wall?’

‘Mia meant to take this all with her to the house, but…’ he trails off before shrugging. ‘I’ve been meaning to visit them.’

He tugs another box towards him, and you find your curiosity getting ahead of you. You pull the box of pictures toward you. Old water stained photo albums, torn pictures, a large framed photo of a grim looking woman and a handsome looking man, smiling at her as if she was the sun. ‘Are these…?’

‘My parents.’ He smiles, but it looks haunted and sad. He had spoken about his parents before, briefly. You both kept talk of your pasts as minimal as possible, and you were content that way. ‘They died when I wasn’t even eighteen. Bran was fourteen, Rose was ten. Mia fought to keep us all.’

‘Mia sounds like a formidable woman.’

He chuckles at this, scratching at his stubble. ‘You never knew true fear until you realized it was your turn to cook dinner and Mia was already home from her second job.’ He looks down at his now idle hands. ‘We were not on the best of terms in those years.’

‘Teenage rebellion? I understand the feeling.’

‘It wasn’t really-- well, it could have been. I’m not sure.’ He looks at you with a small smile on his scarred lips. ‘And you? The teenage rebel? I can’t say I’m surprised.’

‘Committing the grave act of skipping school, vandalism, and liking men.’ You open the next box with gusto, sneezing after it sends up a cloud of dust.

‘First love?’ Cullen guesses, and you try to gauge his reaction. There is none, only an open, honest curiousness. You feel the urge to move closer to him, but you hold yourself back.

‘His name was Rilienus.’ You remember Rilienus-- a golden boy in every way. He would have run away with you, if he could. You try not to think of him, too.

‘First loves are never easy to get over.’ Cullen lays back on the floor, staring up at the rafters crossing the ceiling.

‘You can’t just say that and tell nothing more, that’s practically a crime. What happened to this torrid first love?’

He hesitates-- he opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it shut. ‘We did not get along at first,’ he says. His voice is barely a croak, barely a whisper. ‘I think I hated them for a while. But it was impossible to hate someone so earnest in everything he did.’

‘What happened to this first love of yours?’

‘Nothing. Or maybe everything. I’m not too sure of it myself. I woke, and he was gone. Everything seemed a little dimmer after.’

‘And here I thought that your first love was the sea.’

‘He was the first. My second love was the sea.’

‘Poetic and tragic, as it should be.’ 

‘I think the sea is easier to love,’ he says, and that is the last thing he says before standing and walking towards the darkened hallway. The room feels empty without him. 

 

v.

it is not an easy revelation-- at times, you cannot sense where galatea ends and cullen begins. you cannot tell if the feelings are hers, the consequence of centuries of waiting and wanting, or if they are his, the effect of months, living side by side. perhaps they are both. the conclusion is the same.

you love him. loved him. will love him.

perhaps it was your refusal to let her --or has it always been yours?-- past life cloud your thoughts, but now the arrow is too deep between your ribs, it is too late. you have put a name to the feeling, it is too late.

it is not the head over heels, tumbling love that your sister often liked to write about-- there will be no sudden confessions in the rain, the heavens themselves weeping for you. there will be no running after him if he should choose to leave. there will only ever be you and what you feel and acceptance of what may come.

it is the sluggish kind of love, the sort that only makes itself known on the dreariest morning. he lazes in what cloudy sunshine he can find, hair messy as he combs through it with one hand. he never fixes it here, when he’s with you. perhaps he does not feel the need to impress you, there is no need, anyway. you are too far gone. he spots you, and his smile beckons you closer but you stay away, retreating back to your room with jumbled thoughts and a hammering heart.

oh, you think. oh.

-

You meet someone in the town on the ninth month. Small, slight Mahanon who kisses you like wildfire and holds you like you are dear. His smiles are all teeth, kindness and bite, marking your shoulders, your neck.

He meets you once, then twice, then you are together nearly every day.

‘You live with him?’ he asks, walking you to the cottage. To the townspeople, it is the cottage, the one that borders the sea. ‘I didn’t think we’d ever get a word in with him.’

‘Cullen likes to keep with himself.’

‘Even with your nosy behavior?’

‘I take offense to that, thank you.’

Mahanon stares at darkened windows. The lights are off, there is no one inside. ‘What’s he like?’ he asks.

Soft is the first word that comes to mind. Quiet and comforting, like that one scent from your childhood that stays while all the other memories slip past your fingers. ‘The man is a mystery,’ you say instead because you betray too much by saying otherwise.

‘He’s good to you?’

‘Why does it matter?’

Mahanon kisses you, and you kiss back. ‘Because you matter, silly.’ 

When you enter the house and close the door behind you, you bask in the silence and smile.

 

vi.

he comes home late one night, when the stars burn high above you. he stumbles inside with drunken happiness, and when you catch him before he falls to the floor, you smell wine and a cologne that is not his. he grins with kiss bruised lips, teeth white as bone, and you find yourself smiling back, but your lungs are tight.

you knew, of course. it does not make it any easier.

‘hello,’ he greets. the sound of his voice, rough and pleased, is enough to make your stomach plummet, and you are not as strong as you thought. you wish you were stone again, cold and unfeeling, so your heart would not yearn and your head would not wish. you are no fool-- you have been careful all your life not to be one. but only fools want for something they know cannot be theirs.

‘hello,’ you parrot back, settling him on the couch, and you dare not look at his eyes. you let your eyes wander, to his forehead damp with summer sweat to his grin still in place, but you never look at his eyes. you dig your nails into the too soft skin of your arm, and you pray to any gods, any, listening to let this night end sooner.

‘boring evening, i take it?’ he asks, and you try to answer with words, but you feel a sob escaping your throat and you shut your mouth. you nod. ‘you should have come with me, you could’ve met him,’ he whispers as if sharing a secret, drawing you close so you almost tumble over him. you seat yourself on the floor, and let your head rest on the couch cushion. he smooths a hand over your hair. ‘he’s so sweet, you would like him.’

you say nothing.

‘cullen?’ he asks, because he always knows. he always knows when you are upset, and before, before, you were grateful because words could never encompass your frustrations of being human and real. now, now you hate it, hate how aware he is of you because you are a coffin of memories of people and moments that once were. he does not remember. he would not understand.

you are no galatea, not anymore. he is no pygmalion, not anymore. and it aches because in this life because you are the only one left loving.

‘cullen,’ he slurs, already so sleepily, ‘what’s wrong?'

it will break you, you think in desperate acceptance. this will break you, collapse your marble heart and marble lungs until it is dust upon dust.

‘nothing,’ you manage.

‘i don’t believe you.’

‘ask me in the morning.’

‘okay,’ he says. ‘okay.’ and everything is thankfully, blissfully silent and still.

you close your eyes tight, feel the hot burn of tears slip past your eyelids.

for the first time in millennia, you cry.

-

He is gone longer. Never to the town where you disappear to, but to the sea, to the shallows. The townspeople say they sight him once in a miracle, there from dawn to midnight.

One night, you pretend to sleep on the couch just to see him come in, dripping with seawater, shivering. He only looks at you once, and for a moment, you think he sees beyond your ruse. But he moves on, puddles forming on his steps.

You wake as early as he does the next morning. He looks exhausted, the color under his eyes like an angry ocean in a storm.

‘Cullen,’ you say, and you reach out to touch his shoulder, but he flinches. You draw away. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Why?’ His voice sounds like swallowing saltwater.

‘Because friends don’t let friends sit alone at the beach for hours on end. Or is this a Rutherford only ritual?’ You hear part of your heart whisper that your words are a lie, he is something more than a friend, but you dare not listen to it. You do not stare at the heaviness that comes over Cullen as he jerks his chin to the direction of the door. You follow him like a fish on a line.

He sits on the sand as he did so many months ago, the first time he took you here, feet in the water. You join him, letting the water touch your toes.

‘I've been thinking,' he says. 'About things.’

You let him talk first.

'I’m thinking of visiting my family,’ he says, picking at the hem of his pants. ‘Getting away from here for a while.’

‘When?’

‘Soon.'

‘Ah. You _have_ been doing quite a bit of thinking.’ He refuses to meet your eyes, and you do not think you could stand to see them. He reminds you of yourself, as you were before running away. Hurting in your own skin. You take his hand, and this time, he does not flinch. You feel something terrible bubble in your stomach, and a better person would have let it be, let it rest, but you want, need to ask. 'Is it something I did?’

He answers after a while. ‘No, it wasn’t something you did.’

‘You can't leave me.’ The words come out before you can stop them.

He laughs, and it is the first time you have heard him laugh in weeks, but it sounds empty. ‘I won’t be gone forever. Just a while.’

You shake your head. ‘Cullen, please, don’t--’

‘You’re happy with him?’ he asks, catching you off guard. ‘The man you keep seeing in the town. You’re happy being with him?’

'Why does it matter?'

'Because what you want matters.' An echo of an earlier voice. 'What's his name?'

‘Mahanon.’

He nods, squeezing your hand tight. And the pieces quietly lock together. You need not say it aloud because he knows that you know. He smiles at you, and you hurt inside.

He loves you.

‘It’s good that you’re happy with him,’ he says, and he nods nods nods. ‘We should go back,’ he says, tugging on your hand, pulling you up. 'It's time for breakfast.'

 

vii.

you let yourself sleep and dream. your dreams are twisting and fragmented, and you only remember one thing. you dream that you are back there, where everything was azure and gold, jeweled and gilded.

he is dorian, still in the clothes you saw before you went to bed.

you are cullen, in the clothes you were in when you went to sleep.

he draws you near, looping his arm around your back and you take his hand. he kisses you, just once. he looks at you with sad sad eyes, and says ‘oh darling, what have you done to yourself?’

‘i waited,’ you say, and the consciousness comes over you and brings you to the day.

-

Cullen leaves on a rainy day, and it echoes of the time of your first meeting. You are not crying, and he is not opening the door for you. ‘I left two keys,’ he says, ‘on the counter. One is an extra, one is for Mahanon, should he choose to stay here with you.’

‘Do you have everything?’ Everything is dark in the house-- the moment he leaves, you will as well, trekking towards the town to find solace in company. It is too quiet here without him. ‘Pictures? Lucky socks? Final will in the case that Mia kills you for not keeping in touch?’

‘All here.’ He pats his suitcase, bloated with all his belongings. He said he would be gone for two weeks. You saw him pack enough for a month. ‘If you need me, I’m a phone call away.’

You stare at him for a long, long time, stare into his deep brown eyes and you wish, you wish that you knew the thoughts behind them. He says you know him better than anyone, even his own siblings, but you feel as if you know nothing but his name, and even that is unsure. He is a wonder, a miracle, a mystery that needs no solving.

You embrace him, hold him tight in your arms, and you squeeze your eyes so the tears do not slip past. It is easier between the two of you, now-- a boundary has been drawn somewhere, but yet you find yourself straying to the other side. ‘I love you,’ you say because you do, you love him in a way that is neither friend nor brother nor lover.

‘I love you, too,’ he says, low in your ear, and there is something relieved in his voice. He draws away, and you find yourself missing his warmth, his laugh, his voice, him.

Home is a person, not a place, as they say.

You watch him get into the taxi (paid extra for coming to a backwater town), watch the yellow disappear down the road.

Two weeks. A month. It is not long, you think. He will be back soon, and you will wake up with him and travel to the tides where he will laugh and you will call him cruel.

You sigh, graze your thumb over the key in your pocket, and start the walk to town.

**Author's Note:**

> please go check out [fenbutts blog](http://fenbutt.tumblr.com). they're super duper nice, and it was awesome to work with them!!!


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